August 07, 2009

Insert Cherry Joke Here

Last month, we picked a whole bunch of cherries from Carver Hill Orchard in Stow, same as last year. As I popped out the stems, rolling the orbs around in my mouth and pushing the stones out with my tongue, I thought about what flavors would work well with them. Almonds, I thought. Maybe the woodsy character of fresh rosemary.

So, I got to work on a tart. I stripped the leaves from a sprig of rosemary into a mortar filled with sugar and ground it with a pestle until the leaves just started to abrade. The idea was for the essential oils to be transferred to the sugar so the leaves could be sifted out. I made a lovely lard crust, loaded it up with the pitted cherries and rosemary sugar, and sprinkled it with slivered almonds. The result?

DIS. GUS. TING.

It was the worst pie I’ve ever made. Ever. The herbal “tinge” I was going for was harsh and overwhelming. Like cough syrup, but chunky. I would have sooner eaten chicken fried in castor oil. (I did eat the crust, though. At least that which was untainted with the blood of a thousand defiled cherries). I really hope this new trend of mine, to derive culinary inspiration from the field of medicine, is only temporary.

Make those cherries your bitch! Get a gallon canning jar, dump those cherries in about 3/4 of the way full, add 2c of sugar, and introduce them to my friend Jack Daniels. Jack can have a chat with them, in a cool, dark place for a couple of months. When you let them back out of solitary, they'll be ready to do your bidding.

Har har har! Good tale of an idea gone wrong. I would have tried it too, I'm afraid.

Cherries are very sensitive to herbal notes, I've decided. A couple of friends of mine, top SF chefs, made some homemade maraschino cherries a while back. I kept saying, "What did you infuse with them. Herbs? What kind?"
And they kept saying no.
"But I taste something green," I insisted.
Duh! It was the cherry stems, which they had left on. (This surprised them, by the way. Me, the supertaster.)

Chemo definitely impacts how things taste. My favorite foods were suddenly yucky. Be proud you were up to even attempting this task. I found that opening my eyes was an effort during chemo. Take care & this too shall pass. You are a champ!!

I dunno, I don't think this had to do w/the chemo, I think rosemary is too strong for the cherries . . . although I love to tinker, sometimes after an experience like this I say to myself "there's a reason why this has been done a certain way for so many years." Plain cherry pie is damn good. And I'm a HUGE proponent of the lard crust!

NurseJen: This was dumped into the garbage well before Husband came home. There is absolutely no way I would have subjected him to that. But, you're right, cooking has a way of conveying your emotions somehow. This certainly captured them very well.